Having specialized in lineart (heavily manga influence) for years it has always been a staple in my images.

Recently I've been trying to ditch the solid black lines in favor of a more cgi or realistic looking... look.

I've finally started getting the hang of painting in photoshop (vs cell shading or soft blending) but, it still doesn't seem to be taking the direction I want. I am not sure if this is because of a heavy lineart influence of my coloring is too flat. I can't really find much on this subject other than watching speed painting which don't explain much.

Here is an example of what I'm working on currently.

Image with line art > img with lines @ 15% opacity > img with line art, some line art line painted to body color.

I'm not sure where to head at this point. I;m not sure if my color pallet is to soft and I need sharper contrast/light sources or what? The image without the line art doesn't seem convencing and looks flat. This is really noticible in her hair in the middle image... without the 15% line opacity most of the shapes would blend together.

Yes, if you're aiming for a no lineart style (or, at least, less lineart-dependent), I'd say your current colors are too soft / not contrasting enough. Keep in mind that even when you try to avoid black lineart, some parts should still retain the black. Eyelashes, nostrils, eyebrows, corners of the mouth, pupils - I'm sure you'll see that most of these body parts tend to be the darkest points of the drawing in artists that have accomplished this kind of look.

If your piece doesn't "seem right" when you take away the black lineart, it's probably because you worked on it for too long with the lineart visible or in mind. Try to start your next piece from scratch with no lineart, just a very basic, faint sketch, and then block the colors on top of that.

There's always the middle-of-the-road option of using colored lineart instead of solid black. Just do your black lines as you normally would, and once the color is done set the lineart layer to "lock opacity" (or "lock transparency" or whatever it's called in your software, just put that damn checkerboard lock on), and color every line with a fitting hue. You'll usually want to pick a color that's quite a bit darker and more saturated than the area the line is encasing, but still far enough from pure black. But this might work better if your lineart is thicker and your overall color palette brighter, otherwise you'll barely see a difference._________________DA // HF // Tumblr